The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot (NF8) by Blaine Harden

Author:Blaine Harden [Harden, Blaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Korea, Korean War, Military, Nonfiction, Presidents & Heads of State, Retail
ISBN: 9780698140486
Google: lMTzAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2015-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Uncle Yoo

I

After Stalin died, Uncle Yoo paid a surprise visit to his nephew’s air base in Manchuria.

He was now Major Yoo, leader of a supply regiment in the North Korean air force. He had had a relatively good war. He was healthy, as was his wife, as were three of his four children. (American bombing killed his fourth child.) He stayed in his hometown of Hungnam when the war started, working as a supervisor in a factory there until the city was overrun in late 1950 by UN forces. Unlike many North Koreans whose political loyalties swung back and forth with invading and withdrawing armies, Yoo remained true to his Great Leader, joining guerrillas fighting against the Americans and the South Koreans. When the Chinese pushed UN forces south in early 1951, Yoo joined the air force and began rising as an officer.

He visited his nephew at Dongfeng airfield, a base about fifty miles north of the Korean border. In the months before No Kum Sok’s uncle showed up, his morale had hit rock bottom. He had been passed over for promotion to battalion commander. The officer who got the job, No believed, was a poor pilot and an inferior orator at party meetings. No’s pride was hurt, and the urgency of his desire to defect had grown.

All the while, the risks of dying in a MiG were rising. Sabres were everywhere, and No’s commanders were increasingly inept. On March 21, 1953, they encouraged him and fifteen other MiG pilots to fly head-on into a trap. At thirty-three thousand feet over the Yalu, a clear blue sky was streaked with chalky vapor trails from a swarm of fighter jets flying at higher altitude. No’s regimental commander radioed for help. Were they friend or foe? he asked.

“Don’t worry about them,” replied ground control, adding that they were either Russian or Chinese MiGs. “Keep climbing.”

The fighters were Sabres, and No’s unit flew up into an ambush. One of No’s friends, Lieutenant Kim Lee Joo, was hit and lost control of his MiG. He shouted over the radio that his ejection seat had failed. No watched him free himself from the cockpit. His parachute failed to open.

As North Korean losses increased, as American pilots became more aggressive in picking off MiGs in Manchuria, North Korean air force commanders began telling increasingly ludicrous untruths about success in the air war. After a day in which Sabres shot down several MiGs, No heard General Wang Yong, the air force commander, announce with joyous enthusiasm that another five or six Sabres had been destroyed. No’s regimental commander, Colonel Tae Kuk Sung, claimed to have shot down two Sabres in one dogfight, which brought his claimed total of American kills to five and made him an ace. For his achievements, Tae was personally congratulated by Kim Il Sung and given a hero’s medal in Pyongyang. Five red stars were painted on his MiG. No believed Tae was a liar. He had flown with the colonel on the day he supposedly became an ace, and no Sabres were shot down.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.